This is a very minor update with no major features. The primary goal for the release is to have a new package for the Debian maintainers to use in Debian and Ubuntu based Linux distributions.

Some of the features that are included are:

Options chat on the left and radar on the right.
Lagging and leading shot lines on radar.
Support for Joystick hats in Linux, SDL, and Windows.
UPnP setup option for servers that can be enabled at build time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPNP).
Inclusion of the fairCTF, autoFlagReset, and FastMap plugins.
BZadmin on windows has colors like the Linux one.

The full update list can be found in the ChangeLog that is included with the release.

Please note that we are only releasing a 32 bit installer this time. Nobody used the 64 bit one we made last time since it doesn't really do anything different. You can still build a 64 bit build of everything expect bzadmin if you want.

JeffM wrote:
Please note that we are only releasing a 32 bit installer this time. Nobody used the 64 bit one we made last time since it doesn't really do anything different. You can still build a 64 bit build of everything expect bzadmin if you want.

If I build it on an x64 machine, is that a 64 bit program then? Just a bit confused because the .exe is placed in bzflag_Win32_Debug.

You have to actually set the build target to x64 to build the 64-bit version. Additionally, the 64-bit tools are not included in the express edition of Visual C++, and I'm not sure if they can be added.

The 32-bit binaries were built on a 64-bit system.

"In addition to knowing the secrets of the Universe, I can assure you that I am also quite potty trained." -Koenma (Yu Yu Hakusho)

Well, glad to see the first Debian package out for the 2.4 series now. Since there's more than a few changes, 2.4.2 is in experimental. There can be some major issues with that for users of the current stable version 6.0.5 (squeeze) but should be minimal if running 7.0 (wheezy).

I'm running squeeze and haven't changed it a whole lot from normal except for keeping up with updates. So I added experimental to my sources and then tried to use Synaptic's Force option for the newer version but it kept switching back to 2.0 versions when selecting one-by-one & wouldn't let me select all the bzflag packages at once. So tried aptitude and after going to the bottom of the description section to find the alternate versions then it would let me select them each but then found was blocked by the following dependencies:
libglew1.7
libstdc++6 (4.6 or higher)
libtinfo5 (only required for server)

To get each of those versions of those dependencies then would need to add testing (currently wheezy) to sources also. I did that but then found out that libstdc++6 would need to be upgraded to 4.7 but that would affect dozens of very common packages. So... I didn't feel up for that since I haven't backed up my data comfortably & seems better to just upgrade everything to testing/wheezy then deal with that many of them manually. May try that another day but hope this helps others know what to expect.

The package is being submitted to backports as well, it just takes longer. We were just too late to get into testing or a security fix for existing code. We are also working on setting up a private repository for people to use until Debian gets it into a stable release.

Experimental is just where everything has to start.

I would not recommend upgrading to testing or experimental just for bzflag, ether build from source or wait a little bit more until other options are available.

Because it was written in 1992... and java first appeared in 1995. And java wasn't what it is today when it first appeared anyway.

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." -- Abraham Lincoln

Java would open up a different set of problems, mostly dealing with speed and OS support/install. The language doesn't really matter, it's how the program is written.

On a historical note, OSX has supported java for a very long time, it even used to be the "preferred" method for cross platform development, but then they moved to Objective C, probably because of how sun was acting at the time.

Please don't hijack threads, if you have a question that is not related to the current discussion then just start a new thread. It is very easy.

We were finally able to get an official Mac build completed. Link is included in the updated announcement post. Should be compatible with 10.6+ (Intel only). There are no known issues specific to this build right now except the server plugins don't seem to work (also seems like they do not work on the previous 2.4.0 official build). You may have better success building from the command line if you need to run a server with plugins on Mac OS X. This will probably not be fixed under the current build system. We are in dire need of a native Xcode project file going forward in order to be able to support this platform in the future.

Huge kudos to Bulldozer who provided a workaround for a Mac-specific issue which caused a freeze after hiding and un-hiding the application (possibly in our code, possibly in SDL). This fix required us to link against a patched version of the SDL framework included in the application. Pursuant to GNU LGPL licensing requirements, the patch (a two-line change) is available under on our bug tracker listing for this issue at https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=d ... tid=103248

We have upgraded the XCode project to the current version of XCode that use the apple LLVM compiler instead of GCC. Apple has dropped support for PPC with these versions.

Honestly it's been 3 months since release and you are the first to mention it, so I do not think it's a high priority for us to have a premade build of it. Users who want to compile using the old GCC based system can still build their own.

Additionally, at some point we will likely update to using more modern OS X APIs that may not support any of the PPC releases, so you can't count on the PPC platform for the future, not to mention that your OS is full of security holes.

"In addition to knowing the secrets of the Universe, I can assure you that I am also quite potty trained." -Koenma (Yu Yu Hakusho)

JeffM wrote:We have upgraded the XCode project to the current version of XCode that use the apple LLVM compiler instead of GCC. Apple has dropped support for PPC with these versions.

Honestly it's been 3 months since release and you are the first to mention it, so I do not think it's a high priority for us to have a premade build of it. Users who want to compile using the old GCC based system can still build their own.

thanks, it's an old computer I know! I upgraded from my Atari ST !

If it's possible to continue with a working build using GCC then I'd like to look at that. Do you have some links?

not to mention that your OS is full of security holes. ... and it crashes but it's more productive for me than XP

Have a look at README.Linux and README.MacOSX for some pointers. If you get a copy of the official 2.4.2 release code, that will also still have the older Xcode project file that builds via autotools and gcc (you can also build via command line). The updated Xcode project was added subsequent to that release.

J_Reey wrote:Well, glad to see the first Debian package out for the 2.4 series now. Since there's more than a few changes, 2.4.2 is in experimental. There can be some major issues with that for users of the current stable version 6.0.5 (squeeze) but should be minimal if running 7.0 (wheezy).

I'm running squeeze and haven't changed it a whole lot from normal except for keeping up with updates. So I added experimental to my sources and then tried to use Synaptic's Force option for the newer version but it kept switching back to 2.0 versions when selecting one-by-one & wouldn't let me select all the bzflag packages at once. So tried aptitude and after going to the bottom of the description section to find the alternate versions then it would let me select them each but then found was blocked by the following dependencies:
libglew1.7
libstdc++6 (4.6 or higher)
libtinfo5 (only required for server)

To get each of those versions of those dependencies then would need to add testing (currently wheezy) to sources also I like to use the sizegenetics extender. I did that but then found out that libstdc++6 would need to be upgraded to 4.7 but that would affect dozens of very common packages. So... I didn't feel up for that since I haven't backed up my data comfortably & seems better to just upgrade everything to testing/wheezy then deal with that many of them manually. May try that another day but hope this helps others know what to expect.

Is the joystick hats option in the latest version? Just want to know before I start using it.

Last edited by Aviate on Mon Sep 26, 2016 3:42 pm, edited 3 times in total.